Elle King || Ex's & Oh's

I got an email very unexpectedly from Elle at around 2 in the morning in early Feb - she asked me if I was crazy, and if so, would I like to direct her video. It was the most interesting first contact I've ever received, and I immediately went to work on a treatment.

Elle was a great collaborator, and was very involved in the evolution of this idea - men as cats.

We cast the video together as well, so the video is stacked with her all her types. 175 men stripped down to their underwear at the audition, where they danced and tried to do headstands. Only one of the 175 hurt himself.

The video was shot in one day, just outside of Palmdale California. I actually flew into LA on Sunday, and we shot 5 days later, on Friday. The prep was insane. We had to find a DP, location, cast, find those colored campers, custom order wardrobe, and do fittings, all in only 4 weekdays! What made it especially intense was that we found out that our chosen location had a film ban on it from LA film, so on tuesday, we were back out in the desert, scrambling for a new place to shoot.

I was fortunate enough to work with a very veteran crew on this, which truthfully is the only way shooting this in 12 hours was possible. Oh, and I was also lucky enough to have another director from A.N.D. shoot 2nd Unit - Thom Glunt, who's work is incredible, shot all the b-story, where the guy is journeying back to Elle, through the desert.

We shot with a Sony F55, a Sony F65, and a bolex (16mm).

The cast was great to work with, except one guy who was upset that he had to touch other men in the big pile up scene at the end... You'll find him on the edge of the pile, looking tentative ;)

The Darcys || Horses Fell

This video follows Sonny Castille, a former Vegas lounge singer who lost everything to drug addiction. He moved to Reno to settle into a quiet simple life. I met Sonny at a slot machine in the Sands Hotel at 2 a.m., and was moved by his story. It is a real story of a man who committed to the pursuit of his dreams, but was derailed by addiction. It is a story of passing the point of no return, and I felt it would be an affecting narrative for this song.

Hot Hot Heat II Goddess on the Prairie, starring Burt Young

Moneen II Hold That Sound

This is an old video I directed for Moneen, which was shot by my good friend Chris Walters. We shot this in Detroit, and the entire budget was only 5 grand... We had no crew, and shot on 16mm film with bolexes, so the entire 5k went to renting the cameras, purchasing film, processing it, and transferring it. We spent three days exploring the city to find interesting abandoned locations that we could film at for free...

This was during a time when I was obsessed with aesthetics and creating looks. I was more interested in locations and experimenting with film, than I was at telling stories... My early videos really were a laboratory for visual experimentation.